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This
week we are going to revisit some themes concerning the problems of the debt
and the deficit. I am getting a number of questions, so while long-time readers
may have read most of this in one letter or another, it is clearly time for a
review, especially given the deficit/debt-ceiling debate. I will probably
offend some cherished beliefs of most readers, but that is the nature of the
times we live in. It is the time of the Endgame, where things are not as black
and white as they have been in the past.

Let’s
begin with a question that is representative of a lot of the questions I have
been getting, from reader John:

“John, it appears that you're
arguing that two contradictory things have the same effect: adding government spending
doesn't help the economy, and reducing government spending hurts the economy.
Which is it? At first, you say that adding government spending doesn't help, no
new jobs are actually created, it fails the sharp pencil test, etc. So, we
should reduce this waste, right? Well, yes, you say, but that will reduce GDP
too. I just don't get it. You seem to have it both ways: increasing government
spending is bad, and reducing it is bad. What is your point?”

Yes, I am saying both things,
and they are not contradictory. We are coming to the end of the debt supercycle
in the US, and have reached that point in much of Europe, and soon will in
Japan. So while I am going to focus on the US, at least this week, the same
principles apply to all the developed world.

For some 65-odd years, we have
added to the national debt – individually, corporately, and as
governments. But as Greece is finding out, there is a limit (more on that
later). Eventually the bond market decides that loaning you more money is not a
high-value proposition. If your home or your government is debt financed, you
are forced to cut back. While the US is not there yet, we soon (as in a few
years) will be.

One way or another, the budget deficits are goingto come down. As we will see later,
we can choose to proactively deal with the deficit problem or we can wait until
there is a crisis and be forced to react. These choices result in entirely
different outcomes.

In the US, the real question we must ask ourselves
as a nation is, “How much health care do we want and how do we want to pay for
it?” Everything else can be dealt with if we get that basic question answered.
We can radically cut health care along with other discretionary budget items,
or we can raise taxes, or some combination. Both have consequences. The polls
say a large, bipartisan majority of people want to maintain Medicare and other
health programs (perhaps reformed), and yet a large bipartisan majority does
not want a tax increase. We can’t have it both ways, which means there is a major
job of education to be done.

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The point of the exercise is to reduce the deficit
over 5-6 years to below the growth rate of nominal GDP (which includes
inflation). A country can run a deficit below that rate forever, without
endangering its economic survival. While it may be wiser to run some surpluses
and pay down debt, if you keep your fiscal deficits lower than income growth,
over time the debt becomes less of an issue.

But either raising taxes or
cutting spending has side effects that cannot be ignored. Either one or both
will make it more difficult for the economy to grow. Let’s quickly look at a
few basic economic equations. The first is GDP = C + I + G + net exports, or
GDP is equal to Consumption (Consumer and Business) + Investment + Government
Spending + Net Exports (Exports – Imports). This is true for all times
and countries.

Now, what typically happens in a
business-cycle recession is that, as businesses produce too many goods and
start to cut back, consumption falls; and the Keynesian response is to increase
government spending in order to assist the economy to start buying and
spending; and the theory is that when the economy recovers you can reduce
government spending as a percentage of the economy – except that has not
happened for a long time. Government spending just kept going up. In response
to the Great Recession, government (both parties) increased spending massively.
And it did have an effect. But it wasn’t just the cost of the stimulus, it was
the absolute size of government that increased as well.

And now massive deficits are
projected for a very long time, unless we make changes. The problem is that
taking away that deficit spending is going to be the reverse of the stimulus
– a negative stimulus if you will. Why? Because the economy is not
growing fast enough to overcome the loss of that stimulus. We will notice it.
This is a short-term effect, which most economists agree will last 4-5
quarters; and then the economy may be better, with lower deficits and smaller
government.

However, in order to get the
deficit under control, we are talking on the order of reducing the deficit by
1% of GDP every year for 5-6 years. That is a very large headwind on growth, if
you reduce potential nominal GDP by 1% a year in a world of a 2% Muddle Through
economy. (And GDP for the US came in at an anemic 1.75% yesterday, with very
weak final demand.)

Further, tax increases reduce
GDP by anywhere from 1 to 3 times the size of the increase, depending on which
academic study you choose. Large tax increases will reduce GDP and potential
GDP. That may be the price we want to pay as a country, but we need to
recognize that there is a hit to growth and employment. Those who argue that
taking away the Bush tax cuts will have no effect on the economy are simply not
dealing with either the facts or the well-established research. (Now, that is
different from the argument that says we should allow them to expire anyway.)

There are only two ways to grow
an economy. Just two. You can increase the working-age population or you can
increase productivity. That’s it. No secret sauce. The key is for us to figure
out how to increase productivity. Let’s refer again to our equation:

GDP = C + I + G + net exports

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The I in the equation is
investments. That is what produces the tools and businesses that make “stuff”
and buy and sell services. Increasing government spending, G, does not increase
productivity. It transfers taxes taken from one sector of the economy and to
another, with a cost of transfer, of course. While the people who get the
transfer payments and services certainly feel better off, those who pay taxes are
left with less to invest in private businesses that actually increase
productivity. As I have shown elsewhere, over the last two decades, the net new
jobs in the US have come from business start-ups. Not large businesses (they
are a net drag) and not even small businesses. Understand, some of those
start-ups became Google and Apple, etc.; but many just become good small businesses,
hiring 5-10-50-100 people. But the cumulative effect is growth in productivity
and the economy.

Now, if you mess with our
equation, what you find is that Investments = Savings.

If the government “dis-saves” or
runs deficits, it takes away potential savings from private investments. That
money has to come from somewhere. Of late, it has come from QE2, but that is
going away soon. And again, let’s be very clear. It is private investment that
increases productivity, which allows for growth, which produces jobs. Yes, if
the government takes money from one group and employs another, those are real
jobs; but that is money that could have been put to use in private business
investment. It is the government saying we know how to create jobs better than
the taxpayers and businesses we take the taxes from.

This is not to argue against
government and taxes. There are true roles for government. The discussion we
must now have is how much government we want, and recognize that there are
costs to large government involvement in the economy. How large a drag can
government be? Let’s look at a few charts. The first two are from my friend
Louis Gave, of GaveKal. This first one reveals the correlation between the
growth of GDP in France and the size of government. It shows the rate of growth
in GDP and the ratio of the size of the public sector in relation to the
private sector. The larger the percentage of government in the ratio, the lower
the growth.

I know, you think this is just the French. We all
know their government is too involved in everything, don’t we. But it works in
the US as well. The chart below shows the combined US federal, state, and local
expenditures as a percentage of GDP (left-hand scale, which is inverted) versus
the 7-year structural growth rate, shown on the right-hand side. And you see a
very clear correlation between the size of total government and structural
growth. This chart and others like it can be done for countries all over the
world.

Now let’s
review a graph from Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates. The chart needs a little
setup. It shows the contributions of the private sector and the public sector
to GDP. Remember, the C in our equation was private and business consumption.
The G is government. And G makes up a rather large portion of overall GDP.

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The top line (in dark blue) is real GDP per capita.
The next line (yellow) shows what GDP would have been without borrowing. So a
very real portion of GDP the last few years has come from government debt. Now,
the green line below that is private-sector GDP. This is sad, because it shows
that the private sector, per capita, is roughly where it was in 1998. The
growth of the “economy” has been limited to government.

Notice
that real GDP without government spending or deficits has been flat for 15
years (which, as a sidebar, also explains why real wages for private
individuals are flat as well, but that’s a topic for another letter). Now, here
is what to pay attention to. For the last several years, the real growth in GDP
has come from the US government borrowing money. Without that growth in debt,
we would be in what most would characterize as a depression.

This
is why Paul Krugman and his fellow neo-Keynesians argue that we need larger
deficits, not smaller ones. For them the issue is final aggregate consumer
demand, and they believe you can stimulate that by giving people money to spend
and letting future generations pay for that spending. And sine WW2 they have
been right, kind of. When the US has gone into a recession, the government has
embarked on deficit spending and the economy has recovered. The Keynesians see
cause and effect. And thus they argue we now need more “hair of the dog” to prompt
the recovery, which is clearly starting to lag behind what they think of as
normal growth.

But
others (and I am in this camp) argue that business-cycle recessions are normal
and that recoveries would come anyway, and are not caused by increased government
debt and spending but by businesses adjusting and entrepreneurs creating new
companies. Correlation is not causation. Just because recoveries happened when
the government ran deficits does not mean that they were the result of
government spending. This is not to argue that the government should not step
in with a safety net for the unemployed – again, a subject for another
letter.

Let’s
see what Rob Arnott says about this conundrum:

“GDP is consumer spending, plus government
outlays, plus gross investments, plus exports, minus imports. With the
exception of exports, GDP measures spending. The problem is, GDP makes
no distinction between debt-financed spending and spending that we can cover
out of current income.

“Consumption is not prosperity.
The credit-addicted family measures its success by how much it is able to
spend, applauding any new source of credit, regardless of the family income or
ability to repay. The credit-addicted family enjoys a rising “family GDP”
– consumption – as long as they can find new lenders, and suffers a
family “recession” when they prudently cut up their credit cards.

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“In much the same way, the
current definition of GDP causes us to ignore the fact that we are mortgaging
our future to feed current consumption. Worse, like the credit-addicted family,
we can consciously game our GDP and GDP growth rates – our consumption
and consumption growth – at any levels our creditors will permit!

“Consider a simple thought
experiment. Let’s suppose the government wants to dazzle us with 5% growth next
quarter (equivalent to 20% annualized growth!). If they borrow an additional 5%
of GDP in new additional debt and spend it immediately, this magnificent GDP growth
is achieved! We would all see it as phony growth, sabotaging our national
balance sheet – right? Maybe not. We are already borrowing and
spending 2% to 3% each quarter, equivalent to 10% to 12% of GDP, and yet few
observers have decried this as artificial GDP growth because we’re not
accustomed to looking at the underlying GDP before deficit spending!

“From this perspective, real GDP
seems unreal, at best. GDP that stems from new debt – mainly
deficit spending – is phony: it is debt-financed consumption, not
prosperity. Isn’t GDP after excluding net new debt obligations a more
relevant measure? Deficit spending is supposed to trigger growth in the remainder
of the economy, net of deficit-financed spending, which we can call our
“Structural GDP.” If Structural GDP fails to grow as a consequence of our
deficits, then deficit spending has failed in its sole and singular purpose.

“Of course, even Structural GDP
offers a misleading picture. Our Structural GDP has grown nearly 100-fold in
the last 70 years. Most of that growth is due to inflation and population
growth; a truer measure of the prosperity of the average citizen must adjust
for these effects.”

Now,
in our review, let’s get back to reader John’s question. I have used this chart
before, but it bears another quick look. This is from the Heritage Foundation.
It is a year old, and one can quibble about the specifics. That is not the
point of today’s issue. The point is that, whatever the deficit is, it is huge.
This is a chart of something that will
not happen, as the bond market will simply not finance a deficit as large
as the one that looms in our future. Long before we get to 2019, we will have
our own Greek (or Irish or Portuguese or Japanese, etc.) moment. (Or Spanish or
Italian or Belgian – so many countries, so much debt!)

For
the sake of the argument and our thought experiment, let’s split the difference
on that chart. Somehow we must then find about $1.2 trillion in cuts or taxes
to get the deficit down to below the growth rate of nominal GDP. And another
few hundred billion if we actually want to balance the budget.

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And
that, gentle reader, is no small hill to climb. Let’s say we cut spending
and/or raise taxes by $200 billion a year for 6 years. That is more than 1% of
GDP each and every year! Go back to the first chart. That means that potential
GDP growth will be reduced by over 1% a year! Every year. We would need to rely
upon private GDP growth, which Rob’s chart shows has been flat for almost 15
years! The growth of the last 11 years has been a government-financed illusion.

There
are no good choices. The time for good choices was years ago. I was and still
am a fan of the Bush tax cuts. They were not the problem; a few years after the
cuts, tax revenues were up considerably. The problem was a profligate
Republican Congress which allowed spending to rise even more. And you can’t
just blame it on the wars. That contributed, but it was not even close to the
lion’s share. If we had held the line on spending, we would have paid off the
entire debt and been in good shape when the crisis hit in 2008. The following
graph is from today’s Wall Street Journal
editorial page. They use it to show how much Democrats allowed the budget in
terms of GDP to rise and spin out of control.

I
would point out that in the 8 previous years, under Bush/Hastert/Delay et al., there
was also a rise in the growth of government, as the chart shows. While it was not
as large, it was clearly there. The drop in the previous period was the Bill
Clinton/Newt Gingrich years. How many people are nostalgic for that pairing?
Say what you will about them, their collaboration was a good era for growth in
the private sector – the last we have had.

And
that is the crux of the problem. Either we willingly cut the deficit by a far
more significant amount than anyone is discussing, or we hit the wall at some
point and become Greece. $4 trillion? No, let’s talk about 10 or 12.

And
that, John, is the problem. We have painted ourselves into the corner of no
good choices. We are left with difficult and disastrous choices. We have
condemned ourselves to a slow-growth, Muddle Through Economy for another 5-6
years, at best, as we are forced to right-size government. If we raise taxes to
partially solve the problem, we have to recognize that higher taxes will result
in slower private growth. That’s just the rules. There are no easy buttons to
push.

So,
we must cut spending and the deficit, and yes, it is going to slow the economy
for a period of time. The economic literature suggests that a spending cut will
have 4-5 quarters of effect and then be neutral going forward. But we are going
to have to make those cuts year after year after year.

The
present contains all possible futures. But not all futures are good ones. Some
can be quite cruel. The one we actually get is determined by the choices we
make.

It
is getting time to close, so a few quick observations. While choosing a
President and Congress next year will be a referendum of sorts, I would like to
see a real, non-binding referendum appear on our primary ballots. How much
Medicare do we want? Should we raise taxes? How do we get to $10 trillion in
cuts? You would have to confirm you have read a 20-page document outlining the
choices and consequences, and that should be posted everywhere and mailed to
everyone. We need to have a real national conversation.

If Obama says he wants $4
trillion in cuts, then let him give us details rather than asking Congress to
give him a plan, as he did today. He has his brain trust; surely they can come
up with some details. The problem is that if he offers specifics he will have
to show his supporters what he is willing to cut. And those cuts will not be
without pain.

The real issue, as I have said,
will boil down to how much Medicare we want and how we want to pay for it.
Congressman Ryan’s cuts don’t get us even halfway there.

“ In the past 24 hours, we have seen
the Greek deputy finance minister announce that Athens would fall far short of
planned asset sales (this can only come as a surprise to investors born
yesterday) and the Greek prime minister publish an open letter to Eurogroup
Chairman Juncker warning that Greece has done all that it could. Mr Panandreaou
went on to say that the onus is now on European policymakers to meet in a
closed forum, with no damaging press leaks, and emerge with a strong,
unambiguous message – we have to assume that the irony of asking for more
secrecy through an open letter to the general media was perhaps lost on the
Greek PM. Diplomacy aside, it seems that Greece is placing an ultimatum on
Europe and this for a very simple reason: the end game for the EMU is
approaching much faster than most investors had expected. Indeed, the choice
between fiscal union or disintegration may well have to be faced this very
summer.

“In his eloquent letter,
Papandreou boldly stated that, in essence, Greece is no longer prepared to make
further concessions and will thus blow up Europe's financial system if it is
subjected to any more pressure. In other words, it is now time for all
additional concessions to come from the side of Germany, the ECB and the EU.
The willingness of Papandreou to speak so boldly is hugely important since it
marks a recognition by the debtors that they now have the whip-hand in these
negotiations. The Greeks (and Irish) for some reason failed to realize their
power last year, but they do now. This transforms the balance of power in the
negotiations. As a result, Germany and the ECB have reached the moment of truth
– either they comply with the debtor countries' demands or they abandon
the euro. This ultimatum probably helps explain why the euro has been so weak
and why it should be heading even lower.”

There will be yet another
emergency meeting next Thursday. The crisis is coming to the final innings. Will
Germany and the ECB finance Greece? Print money in a fashion that would make
Bernanke and Krugman envious? But if we in the US do not get our own act
together, in the not-too-distant future we will face our own moment of truth as
the bond market forces us to choose between disastrous and worse. The cuts we
will have to make under pressure will be far worse than those we can make now.

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I will probably write about
Europe next week. I think the brewing crisis could cause a banking crisis and a
recession in Europe, which, just as our subprime crisis caused world pain and a
global recession, will also bring their pain to our shores. We are not immune.
Stay tuned.

In
a few weeks I head to Vancouver and then to New York City and Maine for the
annual fishing trip, one of the outings I truly look forward to each year. Both
cities and Maine will afford me memorable times with great friends, which is
one of the things that gives life meaning and makes it fun and keeps me young.

And speaking of young, I must
admit to a guilty pleasure. I am a Harry Potter fan, and tonight I am going to
see the final episode. Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal, and my favorite movie reviewer, gave it rave
reviews. While I have not read the books, I have followed the story and am
looking forward to the final chapter. But it is bittersweet, as I will miss my
friends who I have watched for all these years. And to watch the film-making
technology change over time has been a revelation, too. What a world we live
in.

Time to hit the send button.
Enjoy your week and spend it with friends when you can.

Options

Discuss This

Comments

Joel Arney

July 17, 2011, 2:49 p.m.

With a rapidly aging and increasingly healthcare-consumptive population, a major key to deficit reduction is controlling healthcare costs and especially government/free healthcare. A rational, nonemotional approach has been implemented by the Oregon Medicaid program for 22 years. Although a cost per life-year (or quality life-year) is the most simple way to approach this problem, emotional concerns make this nearly impossible. .www.oregon.gov/OHA/OHPR/HSC/PrioritizationHistory.shtml website shows us a pragmatic, rational way to solve this problem: prioritize care interventions by considering the views of the public and healthcare professionals along with cost/value measures. A cutoff for determining which interventions are covered is then determined by the dollars allocated in the state budget.
The demand for services by patients going forward far outstrips the future supply of healthcare providers, so further cutting of per-service reimbursement will provide very limited savings and eventually have an adverse effect on quality of care.
Joel Arney, MD

Mary Lee Stromquist

July 17, 2011, 2:46 p.m.

Would that it were so simple. I stand in the camp which does not see the data as describing a business cycle recession. The debt supercycle is the primary obstacle, however a combination of structural unemployment added to the cyclical element is having a profound effect. Fewer taxpayers, government income down to 14% of GPD rather than the more usual 18%, and the cumulative effects of the neoconservative philosophy/legislation over 30 years skewing income away from the middle class, ie, the spenders while the world economy globalized. Individual productivity in America has shot skyward, due to mechanization and remaining workers squeezing everything they can into their efforts. Simultaneously, as poster Rodger Mitchell points out, few, if any of the people in power grasp how modern money works. Bank reserves on depost still regarded as the source of loans/capital investment? Ridiculous. We are living the result of the financialization of our economies, and an “end game” it is indeed. Debt jubilee and reinstatement of Glass-Steagall anyone?

Tony Heppelmann

July 17, 2011, 1:09 p.m.

Isnâ??t it true that one significant difference between the US and Greece is that we can print our own money. The bond markets can not increase the interest rate on our debt if the Fed buys up the treasuries at whatever interest rate they set, which is what they do. The one thing that can happen is that our dollar is devalued, which means the price of imports go up and exports go down. This could be a good thing because it could get people back to work. It obviously also means that everyones standard of living will go down as prices go up. I agree the government needs to cut spending but I think, like you said, we need to be careful about reducing the deficit too fast and creating a depression.

Stephen Decruz

July 17, 2011, 8:09 a.m.

A few observations which the articles overlook:
1. If the huge corporations are made to pay their share of taxes, revenue will go up;
2. Wealthy Americans do not invest in start-ups, most of their wealth are managed and the funds are invested in esoteric financial products;
3. It is easy to pick up economic studies to support your argument as there are lots of economic studies that are bias to different perspectives to pick from. Look at studies from institutions that are objective and neutral in bias.
4. Managing an economy is different from managing a household. If the governing of a country can be as simple as managing a household, every country can be successful;
5. Congress initiate legislations, so why should the onus be on the President to flesh out the plan for the $4 trillion cuts in spending?
6. Government grew because business could not be trusted to police themselves. For the mighty dollar, business are willing to churn out products that could hurt consumers and in the production process harm our environment. While business pockets the profits, we pay for the external costs.
If the true cost of production (internal and externalities) are absorbed by business, then government can be cut back.

Tsachy Mishal

July 17, 2011, 2:39 a.m.

It is disingenuous of you to suggest that the Bush tax cuts were responsible for higher tax revenue. Do you think the credit bubble might have had something to do with that? Might the bursting of the credit bubble have had something to do with the worsening of the deficit? Your politics are getting in the way of what was once a great weekly letter.

richard percoco

July 17, 2011, 12:06 a.m.

hello and good day!

what a great article, however, I didn’t see any information of how one can protect his /her wealth in these trying times? Any suggestions of a safe place to put one’s savings?

RAP

Emil Assentato

July 16, 2011, 10:58 p.m.

In regards to the beginning of this article which started out explaining the seemingly contradictory statements you made; if we cut gov spending it will shrink the economy, but if we increase gov spending it will create more debt creating more of a problem I think hyou failed to mention the cost of funds created by more gov spending which would make it impossible to continue to finance the debt. But I believe there is a growing school of thought that believes that an additional government job, which is the route this administration prefers to take, does not create any additional growth over the actual cost. This seems to be much different than the theory that a new job in the private sector has a multiplier affect, which is still has a significant following to in modern economic theory. The difference between the two is thencost of the government job which has to be borne by the taxpayer. In short the. Keynesian model probably works until we cannot afford to fund government excesses anymore. And that is where we are now.

As far as raising taxes it will slow growth for sure and will more than likely shrink our tax base. The problem Washington has it predicts outcomes based on static studies. If taxes go up, there will be changes in behavior.

Thanks.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

July 16, 2011, 10:01 p.m.

Joe Toronto,

You are correct. That is the primary thrust of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which has many concepts in common with Monetary Sovereignty. MMT calls it ELR—Employer of Last Resort, and suggests this as a powerful deflationary cure.

Roosevelt thought so too, with the WPA. The ultimate example may have been WWII, during which the government employed millions of men and women. Federal employment is highly stimulative.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Gary Given

July 16, 2011, 10:01 p.m.

Hello John.
Many thanks. I am sending your article to all my friends and family and hope that they read it several times. Let the re-education of America begin.

The discussion on healthcare will be especially difficult. If my aging parents are an indicator, they feel cheated by medicine…rightly or wrongly, that is how they feel. In their minds, “the miracle of modern medicine” had essentially promised them a cure for cancer and all of the other diseases of old age. They truly expected to live well into their 100s.

The generation that came home from WWII had it all. They had social security, medicare, the GI Bill, pensions plans, a growing robust economy, a growing real estate market with ever rising valuations…the US was a mighty power and they were immortal. They had it all…they still want it all, and they taught their children (yes, us boomers) to have it all as well. The re-education of America will be very difficult. I sure hope the milleniums, gen-x’ers, etc. are watching and learning. The scientific community that was formed after WWII promised the world and today’s scientists are still doing so. The same mistakes are being made over and over again.

I am glad your voice will be there in the discussion.
Best regards,
Gary

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

July 16, 2011, 9:19 p.m.

The following comments demonstrate Mr. Maulding does not understand Monetary Sovereignty (http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/monetarily-sovereign-the-key-to-understanding-economics/ ):

” If your home or your government is debt financed, you are forced to cut back. While the US is not there yet, we soon (as in a few years) will be.” Wrong. You are monetarily non-sovereign; the U.S. is Monetarily Sovereign. Those who do not understand the difference, do not understand economics.

“The polls say a large, bipartisan majority of people want to maintain Medicare and other health programs (perhaps reformed), and yet a large bipartisan majority does not want a tax increase. We canâ??t have it both ways . . . “ Wrong. A Monetarily Sovereign government can have it both ways, because it does not rely on or even use tax money. If taxes fell to $0 or rose to $100 trillion, neither event would affect the federal government’s ability to spend.

“For some 65-odd years, we have added to the national debt â?? individually, corporately, and as governments. But as Greece is finding out, there is a limit.” Wrong. Greece is monetarily non-sovereign, just like you and me and Illinois and Chicago. The U.S. is Monetarily Sovereign. Completely different.

“A country can run a deficit below (the nominal growth rate of GDP) forever, without endangering its economic survival.” Wrong> Historically, reduced deficit growth leads to recessions. See: Item #4 at http://rodgermmitchell.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/introduction/

“There are only two ways to grow an economy. Just two. You can increase the working-age population or you can increase productivity. Thatâ??s it.” Wrong. You can cut taxes and/or increase federal spending, both of which are stimulative.

” . . . business-cycle recessions are normal and that recoveries . . . are not caused by increased government debt and spending but by businesses adjusting and entrepreneurs creating new companies. Correlation is not causation. Just because recoveries happened when the government ran deficits does not mean that they were the result of government spending.” Wrong. He actually believes the recession would have ended without federal government deficit spending, ignoring the fact that virtually every recession and all depressions came as a result of reduced deficit growth. Do you believe federal spending was unnecessary? Do you believe federal purchases of goods and services do not help “businesses and entrepreneurs”?

The errors go on and on, the point being that Mr. Mauldin uses economic demagoguery to show that federal finances are similar to personal finances—in short to prove he does not understand Monetary Sovereignty.

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